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It is truly amazing how quickly twenty years of marriage has flown by. The first decade was spent having and raising young children and seemed to go by at somewhat of a normal pace. The second decade has gone by in the blink of an eye. It feels a bit strange and surreal; like a couple of years went by but definitely not ten. It seems like we went to sleep one night with young children and woke up with older teens. We now find ourselves embarking on being empty nesters with two adult children. I really am having trouble wrapping my mind around this time warp.

Let’s back up over two decades for just a minute. I’ve been told that my marriage and what we have is an anomaly; truly unlikely and almost statistically impossible. The hubs and I met my junior year, his senior year of high school. We became best friends and then started dating. After dating for four years (on and off), we got married at the young age of 20 and had a baby right away at the age of 21. Being together since the age of 16, getting married young and having a baby at a young age. Any one of these factors alone sets us up for failure, but all three? Impossible. Right? Well, somehow we made it. Not only have we made it this far but we are happy; seriously happy. We are just as happy now as we were way back then, maybe even more so.

I don’t know that there is any one “secret” to my marriage. I am just as awestruck as anyone looking in from the outside, to be honest. I feel incredibly grateful for what I have and I definitely try not to ever take it for granted. I will say that getting married young and having children young as opposed to waiting until we were older and “set up” in life had its real advantages in our marriage. In those early years, we truly fumbled through life. We were so young and had absolutely no idea what we were doing. I think when you get married young, you expect each other to change. You expect each other to grow. This expectation allowed us to come together and actually grow up together. Neither one of us had the answers. We just figured it out as we went, but we did so together. It was an adventure. It was our adventure that turned into an absolutely beautiful life with an amazing marriage and two awesome kids.

What will the next twenty years hold? I have no idea. I do know that it will lead us into a brand new season in our lives. We will have two adult children, become empty nesters, put our children through college and watch them spread their wings and start their own lives. Then it is us again. Back to the beginning, in a weird sort of way. We still won’t have the answers but we will figure it out together. It will be our next adventure.

* Steve, I cannot thank you enough for sticking by me all these years. I absolutely love doing life with you. I cannot wait to see what the next twenty years hold for us. No doubt, it will be something beautiful. I love you with all my heart. 😉

After being married 18 years, having a fun date night can sometimes mean going to a good restaurant for dinner then going home, sitting together on the couch and watching New Girl. We tried to take selfies but Steve couldn’t stop making faces and I couldn’t stop laughing. We managed to finally get in a “normal” one in the end.

This is what eighteen years of marriage looks like. Our marriage is officially an “adult”. We have been through some of the best times and some of the toughest times. We dated young (high school), got married young and had children young. We experienced our “typical 30’s” in our 20’s by getting married at 20 and completing our family by 25. This was both good and bad. We were too naive to know any better (bliss) yet too rushed to really enjoy the small moments especially with our children. The great news is that when our children are off setting up and living their own lives, we will still be young (for the most part).

Today, many couples wait until they are finished with college and fully setup in life before pursuing marriage. This was definitely not the case in my life. I met my husband (Steve) the first day of my junior year of high school and we’ve pretty much been together since. We got married at 20, had our first child at 21 and the second at 24. This means that we now have a senior in high school and an 8th grader.

Starting your relationship at the age of 16 means that you automatically expect there to be change. You expect that each other will become different as time passes. We were opposites and it worked. We complemented each other yet molded and changed over the years to mesh quite nicely. Essentially, we grew up together.

Looking back I can definitely say that we have each changed; me more so than Steve. I was a very reserved and shy teenager. I remember like it was yesterday him telling me, “I’m going to change you”. Of course, I immediately told him that he was crazy, but to be honest, he was more right than I could have ever imagined at the time. Now, I am outgoing, bold and almost aggressive at times; totally different than when I was 16. So, yes, Steve has changed me. He gave me confidence in myself and hope in the future.

Steve has changed a bit as nearly two decades will do that to a person but he is still that same sweet fun loving person that I met in sixth period on the first day of my junior year of high school. He was and still is a lover of life, lives in the moment and makes me laugh in almost every situation. I fell in love with him for his good looks and his sense of humor. This is still the case 18 years later. Happy 18th to my wonderful husband. I would not do this life with anyone else.